


Atlas

by RunningHaunted



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Fix-It, Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Irondad, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, no beta we die like men, spiderson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-08 11:20:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18622303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RunningHaunted/pseuds/RunningHaunted
Summary: The grief is palpable and the earth is shaking with it. Or maybe it‘s just his legs,, Tony thinks as he collapses onto the cool ground. Yeah, definitely his legs.





	Atlas

**Author's Note:**

> A drabble-like fix it, because we all need therapy after Endgame.

When they come for them it’s dark and murky in the far reaches of space. Or rather, she comes. A Supernova against the void of dark energy and unholy matter Tony had once viewed as fascinating. Now it just fills him with a sense of wariness and loss. 

The woman seems out of place yet fits right in beside the alignment of celestial bodies. She floats in front of the spacecraft’s window, light dimming until he can make out soft features, glowing skin and eyes that mock her ethereal appearance. She smiles, and Tony hates her just a little bit. 

—-

The grief is palpable and the earth is shaking with it. Or maybe it‘s just his legs, Tony thinks as he collapses onto the cool ground. Yeah, definitely his legs. 

Pepper is crying. And that’s about the only thing that really registers in his mind other than the completely irrational thought of “our spaceship is gonna ruin the lawn” which he doesn’t voice. But he welcomes it anyway. 

The alternative would be thinking about a red planet and a red suit disintegrating into dust between his fingers. 

Yeah, he really had outdone Howard there, hadn’t he?

Who would have thought. 

—-

When Tony was young his mother used to occasionally tell him stories. Or myths, really. Ancient tales of sailors and witches, sirens and their ensnaring voices, of titans who carried the sky between their shoulder blades and moaned beneath the weight of the stars that kept reaching for the earth. 

He used to love them. Imagined himself up above the clouds, on mountains with pillars that held the world, constructed of shining metal and soothing patterns. He used to imagine he‘d go up there some day and construct them with one of the blacksmiths and come back with his arms full of glinting inventions that his father would be proud of.

It hadn’t taken long for him to grow up and „get a grip“ as had Howard said. 

The world his mother had woven from books disintegrated around him like the boy in his arms many years later. On an alien world that could have been as mesmerizing as Mars had the circumstances been different. 

And not for the first time Tony thought, ironically, of Atlas; carrying the sky on his shoulders for all eternity. 

While he hovered over the spot where Pet- the boy used to be, trying to hug the ashes to his chest, a question snaked itself into the darkest corner of his mind. Were he to ask Atlas where the sky— the world, really— had hurt him, what would he answer?

(Everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere.)

—-

Nebula didn’t inquire as to why he wouldn’t move from the spot. She said just once to come with her and try to repair the ship. 

“Yeah” Tony had replied, not moving an inch. She’d harrumphed after some time, but didn’t leave without him. Instead opting to sit down not far from him, staring off into the distance with eyes as dark as the sky they were under. 

“Was he your son?” She’d asked after while, crushing a red stone to dust under her heel.

Tony hadn’t so much as flinched but whimpered like a wounded animal, focusing on the sharp rocks digging into the skin of his legs instead of the emotions the question invoked. 

“Yes” he’d choked out eventually, almost suffocating on the lump in his throat. “He is.”

Nebula nodded sharply, turning her attention to the spot he’d been occupying. “He’s very lucky, then.”

Tony really begged to differ.

—- 

Morgan is born and the heaviness on his heart lifts, if only by half. And, gods, he’d been so scared when Pepper had told him, his heart racing abnormally as his mind flashed back to dust between his fingers and sobbed pleas of pleasepleaseIdon’twanttogoMrStark and it took ten minutes of calm reassuring from Pepper before he could think clearly.

—-

When she is old enough Morgan asks him about the picture in the kitchen. About the boy in it.

“That, sweetie, is your big brother”

And her eyes light up so beautifully at that. 

“I have a brother?” She squeals, the stuffed animal in her little arms flying about. Tony gives in to the urge to pick her up and hold her. To make sure she is real, solid and not... fading. 

“Yeah, you do. And you know what?”

“What?” Morgan parrots, grinning from ear to ear while making grabby hands for the photo. 

Tony, albeit a little reluctantly, hands it to her with a soft “be careful” and let her examine the teen in it. 

“He was part spider.”

Morgan squawks, the picture almost slipping from her little hands as her nose scrunches up adorably. She regards him full of affront. 

“But daddy, spiders are nasty!” She exclaims, full of confidence, before pursing her lips. “But I guess they can’t be THAT bad if my brother is one. And he doesn’t have eight legs...” she muses. 

Tony laughs. 

“When’s he coming home?”

He halts, pain lancing through his chest like it hasn’t in a very long time. 

“He’s not.” Tony forces out eventually. 

Morgan looks up at him, confused. “Why?”

He can’t answer. How do you explain to a little girl the concept of death? 

Then Pepper walks in and says “Time for bed darling.” Shooting one look at Tony’s face and taking their daughter out of his arms. “Daddy’s got to do some work.”

“But I don’t even know his name!” She protests. “Mommy, I have a brother!”

Pepper flashes him a sorrowful smile and mouthes a short I’ll be right back before walking towards the door. 

Just before they round the corner however, with Morgan’s eyes still fixed accusingly on him, he whispers “Peter. His name is Peter.”

Morgan’s eyes light up again as she starts to chatter happily about all the things she would show him once he came home.

And then they are gone, leaving Tony standing alone in the kitchen with tomato sauce to clean off the plates and frightened voices pleading inside his head. 

—-

Once again they come for him, ripping him out of the pretense paradise he’d made for himself.

This time it’s time travel and were he any younger he’d see it as a challenge, another way to rewrite the logics of the universe, the confinements of space. 

As it is, however, he dreads the mere possibility and sends them on their way. And no, he takes absolutely no delight in Cap’s crestfallen expression. None at all.

Ok, maybe a little. But nobody’s gotta know and fuck everyone who thinks he still owes them something after the shitty fiasco of five years ago.

“Together” Cap had said.

Well, Tony can’t remember seeing him anywhere when it all went to shit.

And no, he’s absolutely not being irrational or bitter here, he’s just pointing out the obvious. That time travel doesn’t work and-

——

It does work, it turns out. 

The world seems to like fucking him over. Repeatedly, while he’s at it. Ugh, he needs a drink...

He must have done something monumentally atrocious in his last life to deserve this.

And then he catches Morgan looking at the picture again and... well, did he ever really have a choice?

—-

The answer’s no.

For a moment he even thinks they can win. Their plan is sound, the team is confident and for a moment it feels almost like it used to. 

But then Clint comes back without Natasha and Tony has to fight another panic attack clawing its way up his throat and , wow, how much family can one person lose in the space of only five years?

Well, it’s not like he had much family to begin with, so maybe he’s just feeling the loss more acutely. Yeah, that must be it. 

—-

Bruce snaps his fingers and, just like that, Thanos’ doings have been undone.

His first thought is: they did it. They won.

His second: Peter’s still on Titan. Strange better get him back down here asap or May is gonna strangle me. And I’m gonna strangle Dumbledore Supreme. 

His third: Fuck, Thanos is back.

Because cross dimensional travel is also a thing it would seem and, yeah, he thinks he really deserves a drink after all this. 

—-

Portals are opening up all over the battlefield, the Vanished step out and the odds even out again. Not as much as he’d like, but beggars can’t be choosers right?

He’ll take what he can get. 

And then Peter’s swooping down in front of him, babbling about Titan and coming back and “Mr Stark, it’s been five years!? Aunt May is gonna kill me! And-“

Yeah, he opts to shut the kid up with the most heartfelt hug ever. Because, fuck it, his kid is alive again. And he’ll be damned if anyone tries to take him away again. 

Morgan’s gonna be thrilled. 

Peter flails a little— caught off guard—before returning the gesture. 

But there’s not much time for reunions and before long, Thanos has the godforsaken gauntlet on AGAIN and no no no this can’t be happening.

Danvers throws all her power into keeping the mad titan subdued, but even she is failing and when Tony throws a look at Strange the magician holds up his index finger, his stare heavy on his soul.

Just one way in a million, Tony reminds himself, steeling himself. 

Just one.

And he throws himself at Thanos. 

—-

Death is... surprisingly peaceful. 

Once you’re past the stage of physical maladies, that is. But best not dwell on those things. 

For some time he’s just floating in nothingness, replaying the voices of Pepper and Peter in his head, mentally apologizing to Morgan, because he knows he fucked up as a dad. Royally. 

But then there’s the image of tucking her into bed, telling her stories of New York before the snap and her bright “I love you 3000” and he thinks, maybe i didn’t fuck up as bad after all. 

Well, maybe not as bad as Howard had, anyway.

“Ugh, what are you doing here?”

Tony almost gives himself whiplash when he turns around because Natasha is there, her arms crossed in front of her chest and one eyebrow raised in a manner that conveys annoyance and love at the same time. 

He blinks at her. If he didn’t know for sure if he was really dead before, he knew now. 

“I don’t know, picking you up for Shawarma?” He quipped. 

Nat scoffed, but there’s a smile tugging at her lips now and her eyes soften infinitesimally. “So that’s what he meant when he said there’d be another one coming.”

“What?”

“For a human you’re surprisingly dense.”

“What the everloving shit are you doing here?!”

“Take a wild guess you hairless ape” Loki snaps, brandishing a familiar, blue cube. “I’m saving your asses because Thor won’t. Stop. Whining!”

Tony’s at a loss, blinking rather dumbly. Which probably isn’t really improving Loki’s mood and how is he even-

Ugh, he’s done asking how things work around here.

“You know what? Fine by me. When can we go?”

Loki sneers and everything fades to black. 

—-

When he comes to he’s neither still on the battlefield, nor in a hospital bed like he’d almost expected. 

Instead he’s standing in front of his house, watching people dressed in black push a bouquet of flowers onto the lake and-, wait, why’s everyone-

Is Morgan crying!?

“I’m gonna miss him.” Peter says quietly and, oh, is he crashing his own funeral here? 

“Yo!” He calls, watching everyone freeze. “I hope this isn’t supposed to be a party. ‘Cause it sucks.”

Surprisingly it’s Morgan who launches herself at him only a split second later, screeching “Daddy!”, followed by Peter’s “MR STARK!”

They barrel into him with the force of freight train and Tony doesn’t even attempt to stay on his feet. 

He wraps his arm around the children and holds them, grinning at the approaching Pepper like a lunatic. Well, at least until she shrieks: 

“TONY! I am going to kill you!”

Ugh....


End file.
